Frankie Kent chose the perfect time to score his fourth goal of the season, and his third in the league, when stooping to nod home an 84th minute equaliser to secure a point from Saturday's 1-1 draw against Carlisle United.

Centre-half Kent delivered a man-of-the-match performance, and the 23-year-old’s seventh career goal (from 129 first-team games) has cemented the U’s top-seven berth, going into the last dozen games of the campaign.

“We have momentum, from our last few matches, and we want to keep that momentum going,” insisted Kent.

“I was very happy to get the goal, coming in a late stage of the game when we were pushing forward. Luckily I was in the right place at the right time. I’m buzzing.

“I gambled, because I wasn’t sure whether to go with my head or my feet as the ball dropped. It was quite low, and it wasn’t very much of a clean header either, but luckily it went through the geezer’s (centre-half Tom Parkes’) legs.

“It was a brilliant feeling, as you could see with how the players and the fans reacted.

“We wanted to get back to the half-way line as quickly as possible to try and score another one, because we wanted to go on and win it.

“We had the momentum, and we had that a lot in the second half. We went close with Sammie (Szmodics) late on, but it wasn’t to be,

“Carlisle were very good. They set up to counter against us while sitting back and waiting to break. We had to be wary of that, and I thought overall we did well.

“I thought we showed great character after falling behind, it didn’t faze us.

“Perhaps Carlisle might feel that they should have won it, but we forced them back in the second half.

“I think it’s a point gained, when considered the circumstances of being 1-0 down going into the final few minutes. We are not over-happy, because we want to be winning, but we’re up to fifth and we will keep going.

“We are not thinking about the top three or the play offs. We’re just looking forward to next week,” added Kent.

Kent also praised the impact of the U’s substitutes, especially Mikael Mandron and Brennan Dickenson.

“We were attacking well and it helps to have strength in depth. It makes such a difference to have a strong bench. If you are the opposing team seeing those players come on, you think – ‘we’re not going to get a rest here!’ – and that’s good for us,” added Kent.